MOH Road Show launch on 31.3.2012 – starting on a wrong foot.

The title of the Event was “Pelancaran Siri Jejalah Public Engagement-
Kajian Sistem Kesihatan Malaysia” but what really happened was a
paradox. As a media event it was well organized.

The members of most of the mainstream media were at hand. They,
together with the large number of government servant attendee still in
their uniforms or with their name tags virtually made up the bulk of the
crowd. The robust public presence that was supposed to be the objective
of this engagement was clearly missing.

Thus it was not surprising that the discussion was devoid of the
substance and spirit.

Firstly, the announcement was only made known a mere 3 days prior to
the event. Insufficient notice and the choice of the busy Saturday
morning hours for the event was effective in excluding many doctors
and members of the public who were genuinely interested in providing
some useful feedback.

Secondly, the time allocated for actual public engagement speaks well
for itself and reflects on the sincerity of the call for meaningful public
discussion.

The Minister’s speech alone took 30 minutes. The three invited panelists
took more than 30 minutes and the Chairman took another 10 minutes in
introduction and comments. Then the panelists’ rebuttal before closing
took another 20 minutes. So what was merely left for the public
questions and comments was less than 30 minutes. That was the level of
the public engagement and discussion for this much touted event.

Thirdly, the call for transparency and how this would avoid the
politicizing of the issue was loud and clear.

One would have expected the Minister to lay out clearly on the table the
details of the 2nd 1Care Paper (which is the follow-up of the first
Concept Paper) for public knowledge and debate. Revealing details of
this would have gone a long way to reassure the public that the Ministry
of Health was indeed on the path of meaningful public engagement for
its program to reform, evolve or transform (or call it whatever) the
national healthcare system for the betterment of the rakyat.

Instead valuable time and effort was used spinning old yarns and
overused rhetoric that we have heard over the past four months. The
usual menu of “denials, things are too early, nothing is decided, still in
concept stage/option stage, profiling of critics etc., etc” were repeated
for the benefit of the Press. It was clear that the strategy was to avoid
talking about the details.

To make things even more patronizing, a member of the panel (a GP)
and a similar-minded speaker from the floor(another GP) were going on
and on about how terrible life as a GP is today,ie., long working hours,
falling patient load and how 1Care would make it better for GPs for
themselves, their income, shorter working hours and their judicious use
of power as gate-keepers for patients.

The ultimate important question on how much more would the already
over-burdened 1.5 million or so taxpayers are expected to pay for the
new healthcare delivery system was left silent and untouched.

Equally noticeable too was the absence of the mention of 1Care in the
Minister’s speech which made someone to quip him whether the
Ministry of Health itself “pun Taknak 1Care”.

In conclusion, the MOH road show did not kick off with a healthy start
but on the wrong foot.

This was a golden opportunity to show the rakyat that the Minister of
Health was willing to walk the talk and confidently lay down the latest
details of the 2nd 1Care paper for valuable public scrutiny and debate.
This was the transparency that a distinguished panelist Dr. Chandran
Muzaffar was calling for.

Without this transparency, the public will continue to question the Ministry’s proposal especially if it is not supported with adequate and meaningful public and stakeholder feedback. Surely the trust of the public for the Ministry and vice versa could not have fallen so low?

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